Substitute teachers have held a place within our school districts for years, but are they truly necessary. In the Lenape Regional School District, a recent budget cut resulted in many losses for students, field trips and new textbooks just to name a few. The school spends a lot of money each year to pay substitute teachers. This money could be spent on other things if my system were in place.
Substitute teachers in Shawnee High School don't teach. I'm sure most are qualified educators, but calling most substitutes "teacher" is a misnomer. Most can't even provide assistance with the busywork left by the teacher who has called out. Notice I said "busy work". This is because I have never learned anything from an assignment left when a teacher was out. So I've come to the conclusion that students do not learn when they have a substitute teacher, and that the sub is merely an over-qualified and over-paid babysitter.
If the students aren't learning, and all the substitute is being paid to do is pass out worksheets, assign pages out of a textbook, and collect the work at the end of the period, why not try this alternative. When a teacher is out, her classes attend a study hall. There, they will be properly supervised by staff that is already required for study hall duty. This would save the school so much money, and it also saves the time of any student who would otherwise spend the period doing pointless assignments. With this study hall policy, the number of students attending study halls will significantly increase. In the case of Shawnee High School, if need be, there is no reason that the entire auditorium be open for study hall at the expense of two extra classrooms. If study hall is in the cafeteria that period, both halves of the room can be open to the study hall students. This would leave students properly supervised with very little added expense to the school, and the money the district would save from paying substitutes would more than make up for the cost of the normal study hall staff.